


Sepia Girl

by regala_electra



Category: Farscape
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-04-21
Updated: 2003-04-21
Packaged: 2017-10-28 06:25:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/304723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/regala_electra/pseuds/regala_electra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things go very wrong, but it's oh-so right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sepia Girl

**Author's Note:**

> Based on an unrealized reality challenge. Spoilers for Season 1 Durka Returns.

The food cube tray is strange, alien in her unsteady hands as she walks down the living ship's corridors. A prisoner, a real felon locked away in one of the rooms, arms tied behind back in a strange, complex set of handcuffs with a sharp collar at the neck, blinking little blue lights waits quietly.

She holds her breath as she arrives.

Dangerous cock of the head, the prisoner dimly grins, desperation in dark eyes.

"Amnesty." The request is bent on an undertone, passing just as the tray clacks against the metal of the bars. "Please."

She offers a food cube in her hand, watches with fascination as the handcuffed one takes it, greedily chewing as though it has been the first food tasted in a long time.

"You're a criminal," she says without thinking, a shocked blink as the words fly out of her mouth.

"No," there, that grim smile on gray-toned skin comes back. "I'm not."

She shudders at the earnest pleading in his voice. For an instant, she wants to believe him. She's been stranded somewhere, across the galaxy, and she can't get involved with this stranger.

"What's your name?" She has to ask, simply has to, a name, something to make this stranger less an alien, less a thing, more a person.

The microbes translate it roughly, and she hears the name.

"John. Crichton."

"Ever kill somebody?" Not just scientific curiosity anymore, she's responsible for destroying a command carrier carrying the revered Peacekeeper Ka D'Argo, and now she's on the run from the allied races. She waits patiently for the answer, caught admiring the strange shadowing of Crichton's face as he bends down towards her.

"No. No, I didn't kill anyone. I'm not a murderer. Believe me." The earnestness is finished with a true, rich grin, discomfortingly like _home_ to her.

She fleetingly turns her lips upwards in the pantomime of a smile in response.

He asks quietly, voice dropping low, "What's your name?"

To him, it translates as "Chiana." And she then says, voice breaking, "I'm not-from here. I-I'm lost. I just wanted to see the universe."

He slips off the metal handcuffs with ease, revealing that he hasn't been chained at all, merely waiting for a chance to escape, and replies, "I like to explore too." He stares at her, the eyes distant. He taps the temple of his head, voice dropping so low; she has to strain to hear him. "They're going to kill me. Worse than that. Take things from me - you won't let them, right?"

She looks down the corridors, making sure no one else was listening. She hadn't brought her comms when she offered to feed the captive. A steady, fearless look in her eyes, she answers, "No, I won't."

She needs this, for she just wants to believe, it can't be wrong. She too has been forced on this ship, against her will, and she longs for escape.

The metal clinks away with the barest whisper. The tray loudly thuds to the floor, but that cannot be avoided. A hand clamps over her mouth and then he promises, "I'm not a murderer, but we have to escape. Want to have some fun?"

And she nods, wide eyes and he takes off the collar restraint, ready for the Nebari Scorpius when he comes to check back on his prisoner.

Chiana wiggles away for a moment, her blue eyes set towards a new direction. "There's a better way. Pulse pistols."

Crichton smiles and replies, "I'm not a murderer."

"I'm just human," Chiana answers, pushing dark hair away from her pale skin, "when in doubt, find a weapon."

He slowly smiles and a panic briefly, but harshly, seizes in Chiana's heart. "I think we're going to have a good time."

For a moment, Chiana, a human stranded on the other side of the universe is not alone. She takes the gray hand; it feels just like any other, and nods. She's making the right choice.

He whispers plans to her as they make their way to the artillery. Take over the ship, kill Scorpius, offer up the others for amnesty from the Peacekeepers and go everywhere, anywhere, as long as they don't get caught.

Earth is a dead memory to Chiana as Crichton plots journeys and adventures. Crichton is clean and efficient with a weapon; she is ruthless and messy. She wants to say something to him, their skin covered in the dark blood of Scorpius (a brutal kill, but a purposeful one; she feels no guilt), but nothing makes sense.

Later, on another world where the drinks are good and potent and the clubs dizzying and dangerous, she catches a reflection of them: Crichton with his mad dark eyes and white hair, shadows of gray that make him look frozen in age, and Chiana, tanned skin, dark hair nearly black in color, and sad blue eyes, and it's all just so _wrong_.

For an instant, she is a gray girl, a tiny little thing, and Crichton is a blue-eyed, all-American jock that she remembers from a previous life (no, that was never her life).

Crichton leans over to her, hand resting on her thigh, where her pulse pistol is wisely hidden beneath her coat. Gesturing towards the soldiers entering the bar, he whispers, "Want to have some fun?"

She smiles at him. Now, this is perfect, now, this is right.


End file.
